Everyday Things You Didn’t Know Had Names

Did you know that almost 50,000 English words have been taken out of the Oxford English dictionary? Linguists have called them obsolete, meaning no longer relevant or useful, kind of like my online dating profile. Let’s dive into this list of words that define everyday things that we didn’t know actually had names.

Earworm

Like a worm finds its way into your apple when you’re not looking, so does an annoying song. An earworm is a song that magically pops into your head even though you’re sure that you didn’t hear it. And of course, the song is one that drives us nuts! The average earworm lasts about 100 years… or at least it feels that way.

Hamburger Button

No, there is no such thing as a button you press and a hamburger instantly appears, although that would be cool. The hamburger button is the three lined navigational icon that we find on most websites. This is the global icon for ‘menu’. It does look like a hamburger. There isn’t any lettuce though.

Zarf

Is this from a Dr. Seuss book? Is it the name of a forgotten Greek god? No, it’s the name of… wait for it… THE CARDBOARD THAT HOLDS YOUR COFFEE CUP! I know! A zarf is that simple box cutout that saves us from life-threatening burns on our hands.

Glabella

Oh my gosh! I can see your glabella! We can pretty much always see each-others’ glabellas because it’s the space between our eyebrows. Some people have hairy glabellas, others do not.

Grawlix

@%&!#! is grawlix. They are the symbols that we read in comic books as kids that replaced whatever profanities our naive minds decided to dream up. A man named Mort Walker was the mastermind behind this creation.

Petrichor

There are many things that get my nostrils at full attention. One is freshly baked donuts, another is the smell of a bustling barbecue, and then there is petrichor, mmmm! Petrichor is the aroma that rises from the earth after rain has fallen, usually after a dry spell.

Scurryfunge

“Quick! Terry and Daniel will be here in 10 minutes! Fold the laundry!” Scurryfunge is that last-minute, rushed and usually quite ineffective cleaning up of the house just before your guests arrive.

Barm

Some enjoy their beer with a little bit of barm, I personally prefer none at all because too much can make you burp. Barm is the foam that tops your beer off. So you go to a bar to drink beer with barm – I’m interesting, aren’t I? Maybe I should reactivate my online dating profile again.

Agelast

Have you ever heard a joke that didn’t make you laugh? Now imagine you didn’t EVER laugh at any jokes, or at anything at all. You would be considered what we call an agelast – someone who never laughs. What a sad life that would be.

Cachinnate

Quite contrary to an agelast, someone who cachinnates enjoys a laugh a lot more than most. Many people use a profile picture of them cachinnating on online dating sites to appear more appealing to potential suitors. I’m not really sure that it’s an effective method.

Nibling

Please read it again. I didn’t write “nibbling” with two B’s. Nibling finds its roots in the word ‘sibling’ but it takes to another branch of one’s family tree. The children of your siblings are called nieces for girls and nephews for boys, or simply, “niblings”, if you don’t want to make them gender specific.

Aglet

Probably one of the greatest causes of frustration and anger is the absence of an aglet in our lives, probably. We could be more specific and say in our shoes. An aglet is the plastic tip of a shoelace that allows us to skillfully weave our laces around our shoes like Michael Schumacher swerving around bends on the Grand Prix tracks.

Griffonage

It sounds like a magical place near Narnia, and it might even look like it sometimes. However, the truth is that griffonage is actually handwriting that is not just messy, but rather it is straight-up unreadable.

Accubation

Would you believe it if I told you that we all do this? Most of us were told not to do it as a child because it wasn’t healthy, but we did it anyway. Accubation is the act of eating or drinking while lying down. I’m a master accubator (Is that a word?) but I wouldn’t write that up on my online dating page, now would I?

Defenestrate

You’ve heard of infants throwing their toys out of the crib, but what about throwing people out of a window? To defenstrate means to throw someone or something out of a window. The reason for doing such a thing isn’t so clear, but there is lesser-known case of a woman who did just that. When she met a man on a blind-date who didn’t size up to the images he had uploaded to his online dating profile, she took the matters into her own hands. And then the matter mysteriously made its way out the window.